Prince of Persia is a 1989 fantasy cinematic platformer originally developed and published by Brøderbund and designed by Jordan Mechner for the Apple II. In the game, players control an unnamed protagonist who must venture through a series of dungeons to defeat the Grand Vizier Jaffar and save an imprisoned princess.Much like Karateka, Mechner's first game, Prince of Persia used rotoscoping for its fluid and realistic animation. For this process, Mechner used as reference for the characters' movements videos of his brother doing acrobatic stunts in white clothes and swashbuckler films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood.The game was critically acclaimed and, while not an immediate commercial success, sold many copies as it was ported to a wide range of platforms after the original Apple II release. It is believed to have been the first cinematic platformer and inspired many following games in this subgenre, such as Another World.[4] Its success led to the release of two sequels, Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame and Prince of Persia 3D, and two reboots of the series, first in 2003 with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which lead to two sequels of its own, and then again in 2008 with the identically-titled Prince of Persia.

Shadow of the Ninja, originally released in Japan as Yami no Shigotonin Kage (闇の仕事人 KAGE, The Darkness Worker Kage) and later released in Europe and Australia as Blue Shadow, is a side-scrolling action game developed by Natsume for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1990. The game revolves around a pair of ninjas sent to assassinate a dictator in a futuristic version of New York City. A port was planned for the Game Boy, but was released in rebranded form as Ninja Gaiden Shadow.

Streets of Rage (ベア・ナックル 怒りの鉄拳, Bea Nakkuru: Ikari no Tekken, "Bare Knuckle: Furious Iron Fist") is a side-scrolling beat 'em up released by Sega in 1991 for the Sega Genesis. It is the first installment of the Bare Knuckle/Streets of Rage series which was followed by Streets of Rage 2 and Streets of Rage 3. The game was also converted over to Sega's Game Gear, Sega CD and Master System. In 2007, the game was released for the Wii's Virtual Console in North America and Europe, and in 2009 it was released for the iOS via the App Store. The game was again made available as part of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection in 2009 on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

Tales of Phantasia (Japanese: テイルズ オブ ファンタジア Hepburn: Teiruzu Obu Fantajia?) is a role-playing video game originally developed by Wolf Team as the first title in Namco's Tales series. Initially released for the Super Famicom in December 1995, it was later ported to a number of other platforms including a Japan-exclusive version for the PlayStation in December 1998, and a Game Boy Advance version available in Japan in August 2003, followed by English releases for the first time in North America and Europe in March 2006. A PlayStation Portable remake known as Tales of Phantasia Full Voice Edition (テイルズ オブ ファンタジア-フルボイスエディション- Teiruzu Obu Fantajia -Furu Boisu Edishon-?) followed in September 2006 featuring full voice-acting during story scenes, which was later included with further enhancements as part of Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X in June 2010. The game's producers have given it the characteristic genre name Legendary RPG (伝説のRPG Densetsu no RPG?) beginning with the PlayStation version, with the Full Voice Edition given the moniker Legendary RPG Embellished with Voices (声が彩る、伝説のRPG Koe ga irodoru, densetsu no RPG?).This game was originally developed by Wolf Team. It was written and programmed by Yoshiharu Gotanda, designed by Masaki Norimoto, and scored by Motoi Sakuraba, Shinji Tamura, and Ryota Furuya. The character designs were created by manga artist Kōsuke Fujishima. A short anime series based on the game, called Tales of Phantasia: The Animation, was released in 2004.